Basics to get started with Planning

If you don't have any knowledge about planning at all, then start here, i.e., with classical planning, the base-case of planning. This is a planning problem class that's as simple as it could be. I.e., it uses basically zero extensions (no time, no hierarchy, no uncertainty, etc. etc.) -- perfect to get started!

Here are some recommendations for self-studying, listed in order of recommended reading:

• The webpage https://planning.wiki basically serves the very same purpose as this very section you read right now! So it's yet another list of references to lecture slides, tools, and much more. It also contains explanations on planning itself.
• Some of the related material I produced:
  • If you literally know nothing at all about AI planning, then my Hands-on Introduction to Classical Planning lecture should be a perfect start. I delivered it in 2022, but it's so basic that it should be timeless. It's a 60 minute lecture plus 20 to 25 minutes of modeling exercises that you are asked to do during this lecture in the last part (where you are asked to pause the video).
  • ANU Guest Lecture: Introduction to Search and Classical planning. Slides. It conveys several important foundations, though no video recording is available.
  • Complete Course at Ulm University, Germany on Hierarchical Planning. Note that you should only pick those lecture units which are on classical (i.e., non-hierarchical) planning. There's quite some overlap with the previous material. Only slides are available, no lecture recordings.
• Now that you should know about the most foundational definitions, you should be able to read a (semi-)scientific paper on that matter: A fun paper about the motivation and some of the research directions in classical planning including some of its most influential research results: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Planning (But Were Afraid to Ask) by Jörg Hoffmann
• Still not enough?
  • Check out http://education.planning.domains/, which provides a lot of material, such as lecture slides, tutorials, and video recordings! It also contains a convenient/easy to use online editor (with integrated planning system) for modeling PDDL. Worth more than just a quick look! (Note that this editor is used hands-on introduction to planning/PDDL that is linked above.)
  • I can also recommend a list of tutorials (and summer schools) myself (some might also be linked from the above, I don't know!). A tutorial is essentially a lecture for either young researchers or for researchers working in a different field. (And summer schools are closed events with many tutorials plus lab sessions.) It's usually between 2 and 4 hours and provides an overview of some very specific subtopic. People giving a tutorial are usually very well known in their field, so most are definitely worth it!
    • AI Planning: Theory and Practice by Shirin Sohrabi, Michael Katz, and Octavian Udrea
    • ICAPS summer school 2020 The talks presented in this summer school were all recorded (see link "Detailed Program"), so just check out whatever you find interesting!
    • ICAPS summer school 2018 There seem to be no recordings of the talks, but all slides are available. So certainly interesting and helpful as well.
    • ICAPS summer school 2016 All talks were recorded! Check out what was offered and have fun with the talks. :)
    • ICAPS 2020 tutorials Again many very interesting topics